


spitting out smoke on the side of the road

by bloodredcherries



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-05
Updated: 2019-03-05
Packaged: 2019-11-12 05:17:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,868
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18004538
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bloodredcherries/pseuds/bloodredcherries
Summary: FP was in a decidedly foul mood when he set off on his bike in the direction of the Wyrm, wondering how it was that everyone he knew was equally capable of doing things without thinking of the consequences. If it wasn’t Jughead acting like a damn fool, it was the continued disasters that was Archie and his ongoing trial, and Alice getting herself involved in what sounded like a damn cult.





	spitting out smoke on the side of the road

**Author's Note:**

> for antoinettexcheryl on tumblr

“I don’t understand why you’ve suddenly changed your mind on the farm,” Alice told him, and she shot him a positively wounded look. “All of a sudden you think it’s bad for me? I thought you were glad that it opened me up to the possibility of us?”

 

“I was--I am, Alice, glad that  _ you’re _ open to the possibility of us,” he insisted, as he inwardly cursed himself for saying that when they were relaxing in post-coitual bliss. It had been a case of thinking with his dick and not his head, and he hadn’t meant it as a tactic endorsement of -- it was possible that he regretted his choice of words. “But, sweetheart, don’t you think that this is a little extreme?” 

 

“What is extreme about it?” Alice demanded, her lips pursed and her arms crossed. “What do you want me to do, FP? Sit at home in this house doing nothing with myself all day? While Betty goes off and does who  _ knows _ what and Polly takes the twins and  _ leaves _ again? The farm gives me a purpose.” 

 

“I understand that, Alice,” FP said. “I just...I wish that you would consider taking a step back from the farm. I understand wanting a purpose, Al, I do. I just,” he paused, and he cleared his throat. “I’m just concerned, that’s all. I care about you. This isn’t just physical for me,” he insisted. “When I said that this felt right, I meant  _ all _ of it. Not just the sex.” 

 

The farm had changed Alice, and FP wasn’t certain that he liked the changes he saw in her, and he definitely knew that Betty was not enamored with them. He had gone over to the Cooper house to speak to Alice mainly because he’d been getting a headache hearing Betty’s voice reach new levels of shrillness as she lectured the boy about all sorts of debacles that clearly needed an adult to handle, not that anyone besides him was volunteering. He wasn’t foolish enough to think that either his son or Alice’s daughter was going to actually reach out to an adult (he was reasonably certain that they had actually mistaken him for a lump of blankets when he’d been soundly asleep on the couch in the trailer’s front room), but he was determined that as a semi-competent adult he would attempt to fix the issues that Betty had brought up. 

 

He had to admit, shrillness of her tone aside, the girl had a point. Several points.

 

“I didn’t realize that,” she whispered. “I thought...it doesn’t matter.”

 

“Of course it matters, Allie,” he said. “Whatever’s getting to you, you can talk to me. I promise it won’t scare me away.” 

 

“I wanted to go back to the Serpents,” she said, after a moment of silence. “I really thought about it, but by the time I got up my nerve to even leave the house and try, you had made Jughead the Serpent King. I couldn’t ask him to let me back in. Expose myself, all the things I’ve ever done wrong, to my daughter’s boyfriend? The thought of doing so, it was humiliating, FP.” 

 

“You’ve always been welcomed back,” he told her. “You don’t have to tell the boy a damn thing.” 

 

She sniffled. “I told Polly that I didn’t feel comfortable around the farm,” she said. “So she introduced me to Edgar. He’s their leader, I guess. He knew who I was. All these things about me and Hal. Polly said that it was important that we be honest about who we are, how we’re shaped, why we behave in the manners that we do. Edgar said that it would take me a long time, because of all the horrible things I’ve done, but that eventually I’d be healed.” She sighed. “I just want to be able to get past what happened to me, what Hal did, what Chic did. I don’t think it’s working. They make me take these pills,” she said. 

 

“What pills?” 

 

FP didn’t really think it was the wisest idea in the world for Alice to be popping random pills that some psychotic guru named Edgar was handing out like candy, but he was surprised when she presented them to him without a fight. 

 

“They’re supposedly multivitamins,” she said, and he watched as she sat down beside him, and tucked her head on his shoulder. “I don’t like them very much though. They make me feel weird.” 

 

“You mind if I take these, Allie?” 

 

“Yeah, you can, if you want,” she agreed. “Just don’t tell Polly.” 

 

“Trust me, Alice. I have no desire to talk to the girl.” 

 

“She’s my daughter,” she protested. “You like Betty.” 

 

“You know how Polly feels about me,” he said, and he wrapped his arms around her, after slipping the bottle into his pocket. The pills were definitely not multivitamins, and he had his suspicions of their true content. He was going to have to ask Fangs. Preferably  _ after _ he apologized to the boy for Jughead’s actions. He pressed a kiss into Alice’s hair. “Thinks I’m to blame for her precious, drug dealing, baby daddy’s death. I wouldn’t be surprised if he had something to do with her decision to go to this farm in the first place.”

 

“Jonesy?”   
  


“What?” 

 

“I think that you’re right. Oh my God. What the hell did I do?” 

 

“What?” 

 

“I can’t--I can’t be in something that Jason Blossom was involved with,” she said. “You have to help me.” 

 

“What are you talking about?” FP demanded. “Can’t you just...stop going?”   
  


“They know where I live,” she told him. “Please. You have to help me.” 

 

“Alright, Alice, okay,” he said, trying to calm her down. “You can stay...I’ll get you somewhere safe, okay? You won’t have to worry. I’ll fix this for you.” 

 

“You will?” 

 

“Yeah,” he said. “Of course.” 

  
  
  


***

  
  


“Your mother and I have decided,” FP said, trying hard to maintain a straight face, as Betty and Jughead eyed him with matching expressions of disbelief. Alice was sound asleep in his bedroom, helped along the way by a muscle relaxant he’d found in her medicine cabinet. “We’ve been together for a while now, and we’re taking the next step in our relationship.”   
  


“God, Dad, did you knock her up?” 

 

“Be quiet, boy. You have no idea how angry I am with you. No, I did not get Alice pregnant, not that that would be any of your concern, if I did. We’re moving in together.” 

 

“Here?” Betty questioned. “Why here?” 

 

“Your mother, she feels that things are best if she takes a break from the house, Betty. It reminds her too much of your father, you know?”

 

“Polly would never stay here,” she said. 

 

“Of course not,” he told her. “Your mother is fine with that. She understands what she leads behind by picking a life with me…over her life with the farm.” 

 

“Why are you mad at me?” Jughead demanded. “What did I do?”

 

“I told you not to let Cheryl into the gang in the first place,” FP said, through gritted teeth. “I don’t care that you kicked  _ her _ out. Good riddance to her is how I feel about that. My problem is that you kicked Toni out of the only family she has, and why? Because she made a mistake? You made plenty of damn mistakes and no one just demanded you go. And then you decided to kick Fangs out.”

 

“He was dealing drugs!”

 

“We’re a gang! Even if he was dealing drugs, are you forgetting why I rejoined the Serpents when you were a kid? To pay for your sister’s medical bills. How dare you just punish people for doing  _ exactly _ what I did?”

 

“I’m the King, Dad--”   
  


“Enough, Jughead. You’re not the King, you’re acting like a damn dictator. I never acted how you are. I made a mistake making you King. I should have just stayed on. I never thought you’d act like this.” He shook his head. “We’ll talk about this more later.” He turned to Betty. “I have to go down to the Wyrm, because I’m now out a bartender. Your mother should stay asleep. Please stay and keep an eye on her?” 

 

“Of course, Mr. Jones,” Betty said. “For what it’s worth, I agree with you.” 

 

“Betty!” 

 

“Boy!” 

 

FP was in a decidedly foul mood when he set off on his bike in the direction of the Wyrm, wondering how it was that everyone he knew was equally capable of doing things without thinking of the consequences. If it wasn’t Jughead acting like a damn fool, it was the continued disasters that was Archie and his ongoing trial, and Alice getting herself involved in what sounded like a damn cult. 

 

He was still stewing in his aggravation when he rode past a despondent Fangs, who was sitting on a bench on the road that led from the trailer park to the Wyrm, and he cut the engine on the bike, and hopped off. 

 

“I’m sorry about Jughead,” he said. “I’ve dealt with him. You don’t have to leave the Serpents.” 

 

“My family needs that money,” he said. “I can’t stop deal--”   
  
“I know,” he assured him. “Trust me, I get it. You don’t have to. Just...I’m dealing with him.” He ran his hand through his hair. “Do you know what these are?”

 

He produced the bottle of pills, and presented them to the teen, not entirely expecting a response. 

 

“Where the hell did you get these?” He breathed. “This is uncut, pure, Jingle Jangle. They’ve put it in a pill form so you don’t have to snort it. Are you doing Jingle Jangle?” 

 

“No, not me,” he said. “Thanks, Fangs.” 

 

“I don’t sell on that level,” he insisted. “I don’t!”

 

“I feel confident that I knew that,” he assured him. “Don’t worry about this, Fangs. I just wanted confirmation.”

 

“Where are you going?” He questioned, as FP slipped the container into his inside pocket and mounted his bike. “You shouldn’t take those, boss.”   
  


“To work,” he said. “I’m not gonna.” 

 

Of course goddamned Alice was on Jingle Jangle thanks to those idiots at that damned farm, FP thought to himself, his mood even more sour than it had been previously. FP didn’t make it his business to go around hitting kids like his old man, or women for that matter, but he wanted to go down to that farm and knock sense into both Polly Cooper and that Edgar bastard. He didn’t think that Polly had wanted to heal her mother for a minute. He was sure that she -- and her leader -- had been interested in something else, probably Alice’s money. Why else would Edgar have met her so quickly? FP wasn’t blinded by the things that Alice was blinded by. He was a gang leader, and he knew how people like that worked. The only reason  _ he _ involved himself in situations like that had been when they had been important enough to warrant his own involvement, like the situation with Hiram Lodge. When Alice had told him that she had met Edgar, his hackles had gone up. 

 

He didn’t blame Alice. He knew what that was like, wanting your kid to want anything to do with you. He’d experienced it with Jughead, and now with Jellybean. He knew that Alice loved Polly. She was her daughter. It irritated him that Polly had deliberately taken advantage of that love.

 

He parked the bike in front of the Wyrm and headed into the bar, surprised to see a familiar face sat in a chair off to the side.

 

“Toni?”

  
  


***

  
  


“I shouldn’t have stolen the egg from the Lodges,” Toni said, her tone soft, and she fixed her gaze on her combat boots, not wanting to look FP in the eyes. She was sure that he was seconds away from kicking her out, like Cheryl had kicked her out of her house earlier, when she had asked her to apologize to the Serpents. To her family. “I don’t know what came over me, FP,” she continued. “I feel so stupid.” 

 

“Hey, kid, it’s alright,” he said, and she gazed up to see him sit down beside her, and pull out a pack of cigarettes. “I’m sorry about what happened at the meeting,” he said. “I don’t know what has gotten into Jughead lately. It’s really pissing me off.” 

 

“Cheryl broke up with me,” she whispered. “My uncle said that I can’t come home. I don’t have anywhere else to go, so, I came here. Maybe I shouldn’t have.” 

 

“You can spend the night at my place,” he offered. “The boy will be there, but he’ll behave.” He sighed. “What happened? You want to talk about it?” 

 

“We got into a fight,” she said, after a moment of silence. “I tried to explain to her that the Serpents were my family, how you guys were the only ones that really accepted me when I came out, how I wanted the two of us to go apologize to Jughead and how being a cat burglar wasn’t worth losing my entire family. She said that she should be enough for me, that she was okay with losing the Serpents if it meant getting to keep the money. She kept saying how horrible everyone is for being angry about what we did, and I told her I couldn’t even blame them. We were stupid. And it made me angry that she threw Fangs under the bus. His mom is really sick, did you know that?”

 

“Yeah, kid, I know,” he said, and she heard him sigh. “I guess this makes my proposition easier,” he added. “You can be back in,” he said. “But she’s not allowed.” 

 

“You’d really let me come back?” Toni tried to hide the shock in her voice, but she was unable to do so successfully. “What about Jughead?”

 

“I don’t care what his feelings are on the subject. Truthfully I am more than a bit dubious that I made the right decision handing the reins over to him.” She watched as he lit a cigarette. “I’ll let you stay with us, and I’ll talk to your uncle, okay? See if I can’t get him to come around.” 

 

“You don’t have to,” she said. “I don’t mind couch surfing.”   
  


“You shouldn’t have to, though,” he said. “He’s your uncle. He’s getting paid money from the state to foster you. Why the hell isn’t he putting you up?”

 

“You know how it is,” she sighed. She shrugged her shoulders. “How’s Mrs. C?”   
  


“Right,” he said. “She’s going to be there tonight.”

 

Toni hadn’t known that FP and Mrs. C were that serious into their relationship, but, she supposed that it made sense. They were both older and they had known each other for a long time, hey, they had a history. It wasn’t as if they were high school students that were jumping the gun. 

 

“That’s good news, right? That the two of you are living together?” 

 

“She didn’t really have a choice,” he sighed. “Toni? Did Cheryl ever tell you about the farm her brother wanted to go to with Alice’s daughter before he...had that tiny mishap in our basement?” 

 

“Just that she thought it was strange how her brother wanted to move out to a farm and do manual labor,” she recounted dutifully. “Why?” 

 

“I screwed up when Alice first told me about it,” he said. “Thought she was gardening, didn’t think much of the hobby, but I figured that she needed something to distract herself from what happened. So I encouraged it. It meant that she wanted to be around me,” he sighed. “I should have been suspicious based on that alone.” 

 

“What makes you say that?”   
  


“What the hell does Alice want with a guy like me? She could have her pick.” 

 

“She loves you,” Toni told him. Honestly. It was like FP had never spent any time with Alice, or observed her in any way. “Whatever happened with the farm, that doesn’t mean that she doesn’t have feelings for you. Since you brought it up, though, what  _ did _ happen at the farm?”

 

“They’ve been dosing her with Jingle Jangle,” he said. “She thinks that they’re supplements, but, they’re not. And now she’s afraid because they know where she lives, which is the only reason why she’s sleeping it off in my double wide as we speak. I only know because the kids were bitchin’ about her while I was in the other room.” 

 

“Of course they were,” she said, and she rolled her eyes. “That’s our Nancy Drew and Truman Capote, electing to only solve problems by themselves, and not involve others.” 

 

“I’m pretty pissed off about it,” he admitted. “I don’t see why they didn’t mention it to me.”

 

“That’s how they are,” Toni informed him. “They think that they can solve everything. Especially after Betty discovered who the Black Hood was.” 

 

“Well, I’m tired of it,” he said. “Come on. Let’s go home. I don’t see the point of sitting here all night, do you?”

 

“Not really,” she admitted. “Are you sure?”

 

“Yeah,” he said. “You’re family. Of course I’m sure.”


End file.
